Keeping Up Appearances
1/1 doctor recommends
I can still hear my dad telling me, “They keep changing what’s good for you! Why even bother? I’m just gonna eat what I want!”
Now truth be told, my dad was a bit of a curmudgeon, especially in his later years. Even the people who loved him most, like me, would have told you so. But this pronouncement spoke what still feels very true. Try as we may, following the latest health advice often feels like a moving target. At some point, we want to throw up our hands and shout, “Why BOTHER?”
And here I am,
, dishing out health advice. The irony is palpable. Until you realize it was me that my dad was bellyaching to after I peppered him with the latest nutrition advice or whined at him to get his heart rate up while walking or told him to keep his head down while hitting a 3-iron… well, the last one at least will always be sound advice. But the recommendations around health and fitness do seem to be a moving target.That’s why I am here. Still here. Because the online “information” bonanza about what’s good for you is, at best, confusing, and at worst, downright dangerous. I just read yesterday in The Atlantic that the “Pro Eating Disorder Internet is Back.” People are dying to be thin. Literally. And this is nothing new.
Oh, how we have gone wrong.
Friends, our bodies — our physical existence, our incarnation if you will — is something to be cared for, tended to, beloved. No matter what shape or size. The self you see in the mirror is the one the world needs to do all that needs doing to make the world aright.
As I write that, though, I immediately think of several young women who are triggered even by the mention of eating disorders, weight gain or body fat analysis. I know this because they were students in my classes where weight management was a chapter in the textbook and a topic we addressed. On those class days, they left the room, surreptitiously.
This isn’t right, on so many levels. Not the least of which is… they probably knew more about nutritional recommendations than anyone in the classroom. They had been waging a battle — physical, mental and emotional — against food for their entire young lives. And whether they would win or lose was still up for grabs.
I have to admit, though, this “modern” reaction was completely new to me. You see, I was them when I was their age, but I had no diagnosis. I didn’t know to be embarrassed about being heavier than other kids — chubby, pleasingly plump, hefty according to the tag in my jeans. My supportive family helped me see that a body like mine was perfect for swimming butterfly, hitting a softball, boxing out under the basket.
And I have all of these physical activities to thank for where I have landed today. More or less well adjusted to my frame size and my body type but with an insider’s perspective on how hard it is to navigate in a world which relishes thinness even when it claims to celebrate fitness. And by fitness, “they” mean someone who is lean and muscled and perfectly proportioned.
Which no one is always, which has us doing all sort of things to and with our bodies in pursuit of that “fitness.” Which is illusive for some, impossible for most and causes the rest of us to throw up our hands and cry, “Why even bother?!”
Well, here at
we are bothering because true fitness is something altogether different. It is what gets us through our days, what prods us to keep going and what spurs us on to our destination. Fitness is our desire to run in such a way that we might win our own race.That’s what’s possible. That’s what we were made for. That’s why we’re here.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey to bring a healthy relationship with fitness to each of us. One by one. Supporting each other. Because this is hard work, and the rules seem to keep changing.
Really, it’s the scientific findings that are changing as we scientists learn more and more about this complex and miraculous machinery which we command and care for with respect and ever so much tenderness. Just like anything else we love.
Together in the journey.
Dr Wendy